NEW ARTICLE: Fighting the FactsTopic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's $5 million campaign to get the media to "Tell the Truth!" about the election also covers trying to intimidate reporters into not telling the truth about Republicans. Read more >>

Newsmax is trying for a last -minute pre-election smear of President Obama with an article headlined "Obama Campaigns with Celebs as Sandy Devastation Continues":

As President Obama closes out his presidential campaign on Monday with stops featuring A-List celebrities like rapper Jay-Z and rocker Bruce Springsteen, many of the victims of Hurricane Sandy are still waiting for federal, state and local assistance.

Almost a week after Superstorm Sandy pummeled New York and New Jersey, scenes of increased desperation — residents wielding bows and arrows against possible looters, tempers flaring in long gasoline lines, and impassioned pleas to officials for help — are highlighting what has become an uneven recovery from the storm.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, President Obama flew to assess the situation with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

But with over 2 million New Jerseyans and New Yorkers still without power, gas lines snaking for miles and as many as 40,000 people displaced from their homes -- some are seeing Obama's visit as nothing more than a photo op.

Newsmax pushed this article by splashing it across the top of its home page on Monday morning:

Funny thing, though: The above are the only references to Obama in the entire article, credited only to "Newsmax Wires" -- the rest is dedicated to the Sandy aftermath. That just shows what a deliberate cheap shot this article is.

It's not even election day, but Newsmax is already screaming about "voter fraud."

A Nov. 4 article by Stephen Feller declares, "Possible fraudulent voter registrations are being discovered in Ohio and officials fear that this may be a groundswell of thousands more to come." Of course, made-up names on voter registrations -- it's extremely unlikely that the person who registered as "John Adolf Hitler," the fraudulent name Feller cited, would actually have shown up to vote -- is not voter fraud since obviously fake names would be weeded out by election officials. before they become logged into the system.

Feller highlights "FieldWorks, a Washington, D.C., based third-party registration firm," as being the source of "many -- if not all" of the suspect voter registrations, but third-party firms are typically required to turn in all filled-out registration forms even though they are obviously fake.

In short, Feller has proved no "voter fraud," it's dealt with under the existing system, and it's nothing that wouldn't have been prevented by new voter ID laws.

This is a regular ritual by Newsmax -- elections in 2004, 2008, and 2010 were similarly preceded by pre-emptive allegations of voter fraud, presumably designed to undermine a Democratic victory.

When your column starts out with going Godwin, we're in for a bumpy ride.

Indeed, Ellis Washington's latest self-beclowning of a column at WorldNetDaily does exactly that:

Are you like me? Are you sick of President Obama at every campaign stop bragging about how he saved GM, how he singlehandedly saved the U.S. auto industry? “Bin Laden dead, GM alive.” This is typical Marxist disinformation on a grand scale, or as Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Washington goes on to rant about General Motors building cars in China, citing some less-than-impeccable "news" sources in the process:

In 2010, Obama bailed out General Motors with $50 billion in taxpayer funds; Chrysler got $30 billion. GM still owes the American taxpayer $42 billion! How does Obama Motors repay the lavish largess he unconstitutionally stole from the American taxpayers? By leaving the country, of course. GM is currently moving many of its U.S. operations and thousands of jobs to China, according to Glenn Beck Radio on The Blaze Television Network, WND and other major outlets. The world’s largest automobile proving ground in China was built by GM, which has already built and opened 15 plants there, many of which will be making parts for U.S. cars.

Washington's claim that "GM still owes the American taxpayer $42 billion" relies on a column at the right-wing Townall by Katie Pavlich that lumps in $17 billion that was given to "Ally Bank, the company’s lending arm" into the money lent to GM. In fact, GM sold off a majority stake in Ally -- then known as GMAC -- in 2006, before the financial crisis. The federal government currently owns more than 73 percent of Ally Financial -- and it can presumably recoup at least some of the money it lent to Ally by selling ownership as the company stabilizes and becomes more profitable -- and the current GM owns just 4 percent.

Further, Washington's ranting about GM and China overlooks the fact that GM's China profits help prop up the rest of the company. Frm U.S. News & World Report's Rick Newman:

It might be ideal if all the cars GM sold in China — 2.6 million last year — were made in the United States and exported there. But most big automakers that sell cars in China build them there, via joint ventures similar to GM's. Building locally is increasingly the practice in all big markets, including the United States — where all the big European and Asian automakers now build at least some of the cars they sell in America.

GM profits from China, meanwhile, help prop up GM operations elsewhere that aren't doing as well — particularly Europe, which is a money-losing division that's one of GM's biggest problems. GM officials also say that the rules of their Chinese joint venture allow the company to take profits out of the country, which some western companies operating in China aren't allowed to do. (Instead, they must reinvest profits in China.)

After some Ellis-esque Obama-hate and Romney-fluffing, Washington is back to the misinformation:

Incidentally, other profitable foreign car manufacturers like BMW, Audi, Honda, Toyota and Kia aren’t burdened with these anti-capitalist union tactics. They are operated in, in essence, “Right to Work” nations. America should join their ranks and remove all these Marxist/communist unions as unnecessary barriers to free-market capitalism.

Actually, Germany -- home of BMW and Audi -- is not a "right to work" country and has very strong unions. According to Forbes, the average auto worker in Germany makes twice as much as the average U.S. auto worker. The difference is that unions and management do not have the adversarial relationship they do in the U.S., says Forbes:

There are “two overlapping sets of institutions” in Germany that guarantee high wages and good working conditions for autoworkers. The first is IG Metall, the country’s equivalent of the United Automobile Workers. Virtually all Germany’s car workers are members, and though they have the right to strike, they “hardly use it, because there is an elaborate system of conflict resolution that regularly is used to come to some sort of compromise that is acceptable to all parties,” according to Horst Mund, an IG Metall executive. The second institution is the German constitution, which allows for “works councils” in every factory, where management and employees work together on matters like shop floor conditions and work life. Mund says this guarantees cooperation, “where you don’t always wear your management pin or your union pin.”

And South Korea, where Kia is based, does have a union for auto workers, and earlier this year it was planning a strike for better wages.

But since Washington's strength is nonsensical rants and not the truth, he continues blithely on his rant, repeating the dishonest $42 billion claim again:

GM currently owes U.S. taxpayers over $42 billion in bailout money and concedes that it would be impossible to move so much of its manufacturing to China without using that money. However, GM has repeatedly said that its headquarters will remain in Detroit. Yet, if Obama is re-elected, he has repeatedly promised in his campaign speeches, he will let the Bush tax cuts lapse, which will in effect not only raise taxes on “the rich” but raise taxes on everybody, including the poor, the middle class and on businesses and corporations, beginning Jan. 1, 2013. When that occurs, even the GM headquarters likely will be moved out of Detroit, the city of my birth, to another country. Where?

Noel Sheppard has been involved in a pedantic little flame war with Andrew Sullivan over the latter's praise of President Obama. In a Nov. 1 NewsBusters post, Sheppard takes exception to Sullivan saying that "Technically 7.8 percent is the same unemployment rate Obama inherited in January 2009," retorting, "The reality is that when it comes to economic data like unemployment, the clock begins on February 1 after a new president is inaugurated."

So Sheppard has established a baseline. But then later in the post, he hangs the entire deficit for fiscal year 2009 on Obama, even though the fiscal year began in October 2008, three months before Obama took office. Sheppard claims it's "sleight of hand" not to do so, adding:

As such, let's go backwards in time to get the truth the press have been dishonestly hiding from the public.

On March 14, 2008, then Sen. Obama voted in favor of the 2009 budget which authorized $3.1 trillion in federal outlays along with a projected $400 billion deficit. The 51-44 vote that morning was strongly along party lines with only two Republicans saying “Yea.”

When the final conference report was presented to the House on June 5, 2008, not one Republican voted for it. Not one.

This means the 2009 budget was almost exclusively approved by Democrats, with “Yeas” coming from the current President, his Vice President Joe Biden, his former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Tough to claim you aren't responsible for something you voted for, isn’t it?

But that’s just the beginning, for on October 1, 2008, Obama, Biden, and Clinton voted in favor of the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program designed to prevent teetering financial institutions from completely destroying the economy.

Couldn’t Obama only disavow responsibility for this if he had voted no along with the other 25 Senators disapproving the measure?

Um, Noel? Do you remember who was president at time? That's right, it was George W. Bush. He could have vetoed any of those measures and forced them to go back for revisions if he thought that spending was irresponsible; instead, he signed them all into law.

Indeed, it's a documented fact that the vast majority of the spending in the 2009 can be attributed to policies enacted before Obama assumed the presidency.

Congress doesn't have the ultimate say on spending -- the president does. And Obama wasn't president at that time.

Sheppard also makes the mistake of putting the entirety of the $787 billion stimulus bill under the 2009 budget. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, only $114 billion of the stimulus was spent in fiscal 2009.

And Sheppard is accusing Sullivan of living in a "Bizarro world." Go figure.

The so-called real unemployment rate fell slightly in October, going from 14.7 percent to 14.6 percent, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday.

This rate is a more comprehensive picture of those who are unemployed or underemployed.

In fact, the U-6 rate Cover is referring to is not an "unemployment" rate, real or otherwise -- as Cover himself admits, it also includes those employed part time who want full-time work.

While Cover insists the U-6 rate "is considered a more comprehensive measure of the employment pictures," even the conservative Heritage Foundation admits the the "chief utility" of the U-6 rate is "shock value," and that " the significance of the U-5 and U-6 numbers is far from clear -- and surely not as great as many commentators recklessly suggest."

It seems that self-proclaimed man of God Bradlee Dean just can't stop breaking God's commandments with his hate and lies.

This time, Dean uses his Nov. 1 WorldNetDaily column to go Godwin, likening President Obama to Nazis:

Oftentimes when we see the headlines regarding Obama’s ever-growing list of abuses against the American people, we seem to be under the delusion that this is something that only happened in foreign countries in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s.

When we look back at the atrocities committed by Hitler, Mao Zedong, Stalin and Mussolini, we say, “That will never happen here.” We turn a blind eye and choose not to see the parallel between then and what is happening here through the “foreign to America’s Constitution” leader in the White House the American people tolerate.

[...]

Hitler said, “Give me the youth, and Germany will rule the world.” Hitler took control of the education system to indoctrinate the youth with his Nazi propaganda. He also established “Hitler Youth,” mainly comprised of church youth groups.

As if Obama’s “Youth Brigade” wasn’t bad enough last election season, now a pro-Obama ad song has been released by advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners titled, “Future Children Project, Re-electing President Obama.”

Dean is just following in the footsteps of website that publishes him. WND loves to liken Obama to Hitler and other Nazis.

Dean concludes:

Yes, America, Obama’s criminal administration is alarmingly living out the dangerous doctrines of past dictators who destroyed millions of their own people. The sad part of all this is that in America, 86 percent of those who send their children to public schools are professed Christians, conservatives and patriots.

Such utter filth and hate coming out of Dean's mouth proves that he is no man of God.

Dick Morris has a long history of taking part of Newsmax's financial schemes. Now morris is using Newsmax to forward a fund-raising scheme of his own.

Media Matters reports that on Nov. 2, Newsmax hosted a "critical election teleconference" conducted by Morris, Michael Reagan -- which whom Morris runs the anti-Obama Super PAC For America -- and Robert Wiedemer, co-author of the book "Aftershock," which Newsmax built a previous financial scheme around. The teleconference cost $4.95 for the privilege of listening in.

Morris declared that he was "very concerned" about the state of the presidential race because Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy has helped him in the polls, a conclusion that directly contradicts the fundraising pitch Morris made right before the hurricane struck. According to Media Matters, Morris smoothly segued into soliciting donations to Super PAC for America.

Media Matters concludes: "To sum up Morris' pitch: the race is close and also not close, and there are danger signs but Romney is also going to win almost every swing state. But to be extra sure, you should give money to Super PAC for America."

In his Nov. 1 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid proclaims that discredited anti-Obama filmmaker Joel Gilbert has "demonstrat[ed] that he has nothing to hide," citing as evidence Gilbert's interview with Media Matters (disclosure: my employer).

Needless to say, Kincaid is lying. Gilbert is hiding plenty of things, not the least of which is where Gilbert is getting the money to mail millions of his film to households in swing states. Gilbert has consistently refused to disclose the source of hismoney, and Kincaid gives him a pass onit, dismissing it by claiming he runs "a private media company that produces and distributes films and is not a political action committee or affiliated with any political campaign."

Kincaid also fails to press Gilbert to provide any evidence to substantiate his claim that he "has had his private financial accounts hacked into and the information used by a George Soros-linked journalist who may be part of a 'dirty tricks' campaign against GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney." Unlike WorldNetDaily's Drew Zahn, Kincaid does actually contact the journalist in question, Seth Rosenfeld, who points out that "It is false that I misrepresented myself or engaged in any improper or illegal conduct." But Kincaid then allows Gilbert to deny what Rosenfeld says -- again, without providing any evidence.

Further, Kincaid completely ignores the fact that Gilbert's film has been discredited by Loren Collins, who has detailed Gilbert's falsehoods and deceptions on his website.

We've contacted both Gilbert and Kincaid to find out when they will respond to Collins' debunking. They have not yet responded.

Aaron Klein is still keeping up his identity fraud trolling of Barack Obama's campaign website, using a Nov. 1 WorldNetDaily article to tout how he's using a "Pakistani proxy server" to run a "grassroots fundraising page titled “Fatwa: Foreign Donations” on President Obama’s campaign website" under the name "Osama bin Laden."

You'll recall that Klein wrote an Obama-bashing book earlier this year that essentially went nowhere -- it briefly made the bestseller list on the strength of Klein's appearances on Fox News and local talk radio, not from his association with WND. The book had no impact whatsoever on Obama's campaign.

So now, this author and so-called reporter -- who once laughably claimed that he had no anti-Obama agenda -- is now reduced to trolling Obama's website in order to manufacture something, anything to slime Obama one last time before the election. That's all he has left.

That Klein is eager to perform such a cheap, lame, meaningless stunt demonstrates the state of Klein's journalistic standards -- and those of his employer.

As actual journalists, not a paid shills for Barack Obama or unlimited government, we at WND.com take risks in investigating fraud, waste, corruption and abuse by officials. I wonder if BuzzFeed were around during Martin Luther King's day if you would focus on the risks of civil disobedience rather than the larger issues of social justice he raised and the specific grievances he brought to the nation's attention. I also can't help but wonder if you, as a purported journalist will cheer if I am prosecuted for investigating FEC violations by the president of the United States.

Yeah, remember that time MLK totally trolled everyone by claiming he was Lester Maddox? Good times.

It will star singers who’ve been big Obama fans – Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Sting – as well as the pro-Obama celebrities of NBC, like Jimmy Fallon and Brian Williams. No Kanye West? Matt Lauer will host the show. How will this not end up looking like last-minute Obama boosterism, at least from this cast?

Yeah, New Jersey natives Springsteen and Bon Jovi have absolutely no motivation to take part other than to promote Obama, do they?

Apparently, Graham is unable to set aside his rabig right-wing partisanship for even a second in his quest to see "liberal bias" in pretty much everything.

Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy stays firmly in Romney-fluffing mode in his Oct. 30 column, which is dedicated to how noble Mitt Romney is for devoting himself to public service instead of making serious money in the financial sector:

Mitt Romney passed up well over a billion dollars to do public service.

It’s an amazing statement, but it’s true.

If you watched the media, you would think Romney is a greedy elitist. However, the three recent presidential debates showed the Republican presidential candidate to be a man passionately concerned about the future of America, and determined to do something about it.

But the true level of Romney’s passion about this country are in the numbers — his personal financial numbers, that is.

A recent Forbes magazine article by Nathan Vardi headlined, “Mitt Romney: The Most Expensive Political Career in American History.”

As Vardi observes, “Lots of people pay a high price for getting into politics, but no one has likely given up more, at least financially, than Mitt Romney.”

Just how much?

Well, Forbes estimates Romney would be worth around $2 billion if he had stayed at Bain Capital rather than run for office.

Ruddy then touts how well Bain did under Romney:

In fact, during Romney’s tenure heading Bain, it boasted an astounding 173 percent annual internal rate of return on the firms it bought and sold through the end of 1999, when he left the firm.

All of which goes to show that not only is would-be president Mitt Romney an experienced businessman, he’s a very good one as well.

Obama has not, and cannot, defend his record. The thrust of his campaign is to try to demonize Romney and make us afraid of him. His petty, baseless attacks against his stronger opponent remind us of a scared little Chihuahua.

This is not the image we want to project from the White House. We need the disciplined Doberman, dependable, highly intelligent, fiercely loyal and able to strike with lethal force when necessary.

All evidence indicates that Barack Obama was raised and indoctrinated three times a week during his formative years (ages 9-18) by his apparent biological and ideological father, Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party agent. Davis was converted to a socialist worldview by Paul Robeson and trained by the Soviet Kremlin. All evidence indicates that Davis almost succeeded in organizing the Communist-controlled ILWU (union) in a failed effort to take over the Hawaiian government in 1949.

And all evidence indicates that for his entire life Barack Obama followed the dreams from his real Communist father. Yet, not a dream but an existential nightmare is for Obama to forsake Christianity, capitalism and truth in exchange for a forced imposition of a classic Stalinist/Marxist agenda upon America at home and abroad. And what is the history of Marxism? Marxism leads to economic destruction and the biological ruin of populations and societies.

The world echoed with the vacuous promises of candidate Barack Obama: “Hope” and “change” were the words, and to hear him at that time, they would solve everything.

Look at us now!

But more importantly, look at him now. “Mr. Cool, Smooth and Sophisticated” – “Mr. I will solve the problems of the world and be the answer to all your prayers” – is showing what he has always been: an angry, shallow, thin-skinned, defensive, name-calling, dirty street-fighter.

He also has no compunction about stretching the truth to invisibility if it serves his political purpose. And oh my, he has political purposes, all self-aggrandizing.

Our wise forefathers, seeing our nation disintegrate before their eyes, did what they did in Philadelphia because it was the only way forward – otherwise they would lose their country. Today, our nation is likewise disintegrating. Whether you like Mitt Romney or not is irrelevant, just as the founders’ attitude toward slavery didn’t deter them from doing what they had to do to save the nation. Electing Romney is simply the only possible way to stop Obama from continuing on as president. Everything else is folly.

So if, rather than casting your ballot for Romney/Ryan, you vote for a third-party presidential candidate like the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson or the Constitution Party’s Virgil Goode, or write in some name like “Jesus” or “God” or “Ron Paul” (I cite these examples since some people are claiming this is how they will cast their vote for president), or if you refuse to vote, you are knowingly contributing to the continued reign of Barack Obama, the most catastrophic president in history, whose actions of late have bordered on treason and who has almost destroyed America in four years and will complete the job in four more.

My baby brother, Jerry, was the most adorable boy in North Carolina. All the girls chased him. One evening during dinner, when he was just beginning to date, Jerry got a call from a girl he had zero interest in. He had unskillfully agreed to join her in a group football party. Jerry was sure the plan would fall through. It hadn’t, and she was calling to claim her “prize.”

Jerry recoiled. He had no desire to hurt her feeling but even less desire to be her date. Mother, Dad and I listened intently as Jerry, still more unskillfully, tried to weasel out of it. Jerry told her, “You don’t understand; we can’t get the tickets.” And then, within less than 30 seconds, he also said, “You don’t understand; we’ve already got the tickets.”

Dad turned to Mother and said, “He’s got to be the worst liar in the world.” Alas, my parents didn’t live to hear Barack Obama!

I won’t beat around the bush. I watched all of the GOP debates, I watched the Biden-Ryan debate, and I even sat through all three of the presidential debates – and I don’t think it’s fair that I only get one vote that can be canceled out by the vote of one of those louts who got a free cell phone, thanks to Obama, or one of the guttersnipes who befouled our streets as a member of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

If all goes according to plan, this will be my last column in this space before the 2012 general election. Despite the cult of personality, the novelty of America’s first black president, the cool factor, a gift for oratory, and the countenance of the press and entertainment media, Barack Obama’s chances for re-election have dwindled dangerously. While I think it’s likely that he will be beaten badly, there is the possibility that I’m mistaken. There are still millions who will be voting for him on the basis of personal affinity, and the Obama campaign’s ground game remains good; this of course will include methods ranging from the questionable to the outright illegal.

Next week’s election will feature rampant voter fraud on the part of the Democrats. Already, early voting in North Carolina has uncovered machines that logged double votes for Obama when those votes were cast for Romney. Election officials claim there’s no cause for worry, and why should there be?

After all, it’s not like we have man-on-the-street footage of Obama voters admitting to voting more than once in the past. Oh, wait. We do. All right, well, that’s clearly troubling, but it’s not as if we have footage of prominent Democrats conspiring to rig this year’s election. Oh, wait. We do. Well, it isn’t as if Obama’s supporters are thugs who have a history of standing in front of polls illegally carrying weapons and intimidating white voters, whom they, in their racism, presume to be votes against Glorious Leader Obama.

Obama’s problem is that he is a sociopath. What makes a sociopathic liar different from a pathological liar is that he employs lying for the specific purpose of manipulating others. This explanation fits Barack Obama perfectly, as he must certainly be the most manipulative U.S. president in history.

In 2008, he was able to manipulate the majority of the electorate by engaging in a nonstop campaign of breathtaking lies. And, even today, after bringing America to the verge of total collapse and being repeatedly caught with his pants on fire, he still has nearly half the population bamboozled.

An election season mailer linked to Focus on the Family and sent out to evangelical Christian voters in Iowa unfairly quoted President Obama out of context, CNN's Political Tracker blog complained this morning.

Yet in Peter Hamby's blog post -- Anti-Obama mail piece: ‘We are no longer a Christian nation’ -- the CNN.com staffer glossed over the fact that the other charges waged in the mailer are spot-on about areas in which the president is sharply to the left of religious conservatives on abortion, same-sex marriage, and a religious exemption for the contraception mandate[.]

Yep, that's the defense Shepherd is going with -- sure, the "Christian nation" quote is out of context, but the rest of it is true!

It's apparently so self-evident to Shepherd that the rest of the flyer is "spot-on" that he doesn't bother to prove it to the rest of us. Which should tell us that it probably isn't -- and indeed it's not.

One of the other "charges" in the flyer reads: "As a state senator, [Obama] led the fight to deny life-saving care for babies who survive abortions." As we've repeatedly pointed out, Illinois already had a law requiring medical care for a viable fetus that survived an abortion. What the flyer is referring to are efforts in 2001, 2002, and 2003 to expand that law with a "born alive" clause requiring that any fetus that survived an abortion, even ones that could not survive outside the womb, receive medical care. Obama has said he opposed those bills because the law would likely have been struck down in the courts for giving legal status to fetuses, a requirement that a second doctor be present at abortions, and their lack of a "neutrality clause" to make sure the bill would not affect current abortion laws.

Despite having essentially conceded that the flyer's "Christian nation" quote is unfair, Shepherd goes on to try and diminish its importance to Focus on the Family's argument -- even though, again, it's the topmost allegation in the flyer. He writes that "To his credit, Hamby links to photos of the mailer, which readers can peruse at their leisure. That being said, if you failed to check out the photos, you'd have the impression that the greatest charge of the mailer if that President Obama doesn't believe America is a Christian nation, when the factually-accurate charges about his stands on other social issues are the more damning charges."

But the "Christian nation" quote is the topmost quote in the flyer, directly under the headline "Compare and Decide: Your decision could not be more important." Doesn't that layout decision constitute evidence that Focus on the Family considers it to be the "greatest charge of the mailer"?

Then, Shepard insists the misleading quote isn't that important in the first place, except for being cited as a critique of conservatives who cite it:

The "Christian nation" charge by CitizenLink -- whether or not you think it's a fair one -- is more icing on the cake, not the cake itself, but it's precisely this sort of story which you can bet others in the media will run with as a cudgel to bludgeon conservatives, saying it's part and parcel of a campaign to castigate Obama as "the other."

In fact, there is an unambiguous strain of conservativism that strives to "otherize" Obama, led by MRC fave Rush Limbaugh. Shepherd shouldn't pretend it doesn't exist.